


thirty-five paper frogs

by blueparacosm



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Study, Depression, Fix-It, Fluff, Gen, Jasper Jordan Lives, Recreational Drug Use, Suicide Attempt, didn't mean to, homoerotic friendship, i miss jasper, oh right, ring fic, shoehorned in actual homosexuality to prove they are friends, to be quite honest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:15:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24402640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueparacosm/pseuds/blueparacosm
Summary: Murphy had done a lot of things wrong in his short life.He would never have guessed that being unkind to Jasper Jordan would become the wrong thing he hated most.-Fix-It: Jasper makes it to the Ring, and Murphy learns how to be part of a family.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/John Murphy, Jasper Jordan & John Murphy
Comments: 25
Kudos: 122





	thirty-five paper frogs

**Author's Note:**

> i just feel like if jasper and murphy had been friends then there would be world peace and to demonstrate this i wrote words about it
> 
> (in case you are like me and ignore tags, there is a suicide attempt in this fic. so please decide whether this is safe for you to read accordingly <3)
> 
> song/mood music rec for this fic- chin up by yoke lore!
> 
> enjoy!

Goggles laughed as they stumbled through the woods, kicking up snow, ash floating all around. They didn’t have long to get to Monty and back to the rocket, no more than ten minutes. Praimfaya was pushy like that.

“Someone’s chipper,” Murphy gasped, his arms and legs aching, his suit sticking to his skin with sweat, his panting breath beading into foggy condensation on the inside of his stupid, massive helmet.

“I thought you were evil,” panted Jasper, whacking a branch out of his face as they ran and consequently spraying snow all over Murphy, who didn’t even have the time or breath to protest it. “Now you’re risking getting nuked to save my friend.”

Murphy clenched his jaw, zeroing in on a smear of radiation suit gray lying prone, burned and sick, on the forest floor. 

“What can I say? I’ve got a hankering for algae and there’s only one man I trust to grow it,” he grunted at last, having found a way out of expressing any genuine concern for the brave little engineer who seared his hands to get that goddamn oxygenator out of the lighthouse.

Murphy didn’t have to dread any further probing from Jasper, it seemed, who spotted Monty and bolted ahead with a speed that Murphy was briefly embarrassed to be unable to match, chalking it up to sore muscles.

“Monty,” gasped Jasper, wedging an arm beneath Monty and lifting his head, jiggling him by the shoulders to try and rouse him. Murphy turned away from Monty’s limp body, simmering with conflicted guilt. He never wanted to leave Monty behind, but the machine… They really, _really_ needed that machine. 

“Monty. Monty, please, man. Get up!” Jasper begged, his voice trembling with real fear. “I didn’t give up my party at the end of the world just to see you die out here, did I?” asked Goggles.

Murphy raised a brow at that but didn’t ask, and approached carefully as Monty lifted his helmeted head and raised his lost eyes to Jasper’s, a relieved grin suddenly overtaking his wan face. “You came back for me. You…” He trailed off, following Jasper’s eyes until the both of them were staring right at Murphy. Smiling.

“Okay, you guys are creeping me out,” said Murphy, and then let out an _‘oof’_ as Jasper balled up the front of Murphy’s suit in his fist and yanked him in, the trio’s helmets clacking together in some awkward approximation of a group hug that Murphy had most certainly not agreed to and wanted out of as soon as possible.

“You’re gonna tear my suit,” he muttered, closing his eyes as Thing One and Thing Two clung to him, keenly aware of the soft pressure of gloved hands on his back, all their chests and shoulders pressed together. 

He didn’t deserve this.

“Don’t you ever lighten up, Murphy?” Monty sighed, curling his fist between Murphy’s shoulder blades, his gratitude palpable to the point of making Murphy worry he’d raised their standards too high, now, by doing the bare minimum.

When he at last opened his eyes to insist on getting back to the rocket, he chanced a look at Goggles. His helmet gleamed with reflections of falling snow and ash, the sky burning the color of desert dust, a forgotten parchment soon to curl and blacken in fire, and behind the perfect picture of nuclear meltdown were a pair of damp eyes set on Murphy like he’d moved worlds. All because the selfish bastard had come back for someone.

Then Jasper’s expression, which for the last however many hours of scrambling had been teetering between fatalistically cheerful and glowering at being forced to make any effort at all to survive, hardened into grim determination.

He wrapped an arm around Monty to support him, radiation-sick and flickering with pain, and Murphy helped, looking at Jasper Jordan— of all the few people left on the planet— to lead the way.

Jasper matched his gaze. “Race you,” he said.

The three boys tore through the burning wood like there was an apocalypse at their heels.

***

Turns out, it took more than a backtracking rescue mission and an adrenaline rush for somebody to forget you tried to kill them in their sleep, and knocked them out once or twice, and held them hostage or whatever. Goggles was a lot more sensitive about that sort of stuff than Bellamy and Raven had been.

The Ring had been up and running for a week. They had oxygen, electricity, and water. They had two months’ worth of MREs to eat, maybe a little longer, since Clarke was dead. The algae was growing.

There were some tables and chairs in the cafeteria, too. A soccer ball that was haunting Murphy because he doubted anyone, including him, was really in the mood to play. Control panels that he couldn’t even begin to comprehend but a captain’s chair that he quite liked. A rocket that would collect dust for five years.

Five years. Five fucking years in space. It should have been a relief. A break from it all; some peace and quiet at last. But Murphy’s head was shrill with the shrieking visions of everything that had happened during their awful little blip on Earth, demanding to be dealt with, and all Murphy knew to do was pretend he wasn’t hearing them.

It would have helped, loathe as he was to admit it, to have a job to do.

Monty was in charge of the algae experiments, assisted by Harper, Raven in charge of the technical shit, and Bellamy, well, nobody was asking Bellamy to do much of anything. Sometimes he pulled himself together enough to organize things and help Emori scavenge for supplies, but then he usually slunk off to sit in the starboard bay window again, gazing helplessly out at the blackened Earth. Jasper was doing _something_ , somewhere.

Then there was Murphy, who was good for nothing at all.

He had half a mind to try and be the Ring’s dancing monkey, to stoop truly low and make himself useful by cracking wise, by— oh, he gagged to think— bringing them all together.

But nobody was in the mood for a clown, and neither was he in the mood to be one. To sell himself out in the hopes they’d keep on feeding him. So Murphy was about as much use to anyone as the old soccer ball.

Besides, they didn’t need someone like _him_ to try and bring them together. Bellamy had already had a manic day and insisted on an ever-growing list of rules and regulations that were meant to foster community, seeing as, if they were to survive this, they would need to be social, cooperative, and take care of each other. _Bleh._

First item on that list was mandatory movie nights, thrice a week so they could use them to keep track of the days. Some _community members_ , being the ones that had the most work to do, argued that thrice was two nights too many. Bellamy had taken one look at Murphy, who was trying his very hardest not to seem enthused by the prospect and gnawing his lip to keep from grinning, and said thrice sounded fine to him, actually.

Murphy was a bit of a closet film geek, and could’ve picked Bellamy up and spun him around, if— well, a lot of circumstances were different.

When their first movie night came around they dragged all the pillows and mattresses and blankets they could scrounge up into the cafeteria, which they were calling the common area now, and Bellamy got a projector rolling with only a lot of hushed help from Raven. For a long while after he seemingly inspected the tapes and DVDs available for the first time, his expression puzzled.

“Can he read?” Murphy muttered, adjusting on the mattress as Emori reached out and slapped him across the chest for being rude. 

She seemed unnecessarily worried about being floated. Though Murphy supposed the hundred had no problem voting people off the island if what they’d done to him was any indication, and that maybe she had the right idea about kissing ass.

“He can, thanks,” replied Bellamy, turning over another DVD case with furrowed brows and a frown. “Well, I hope you guys are into instructional videos. That’s all they’ve got.”

Murphy snorted, standing up from the mattress and stretching his arms over his head as he made to leave, ignoring words of protest from Emori and the others.

“It could be fun,” offered Jasper, shrugging as Murphy turned a dubious glance his way, where he was stuffed in the corner and hugging a big purple pillow. “It’s not like we’ve got anything else to do. Maybe we could watch one on mute, and Murphy could narrate.”

Murphy scoffed as Jasper grinned innocently at him, though his eyes danced between Murphy’s and anywhere else, unable to meet Murphy’s stare. Emori giggled, saying, “I’m not sure what a lot of those words mean, but I like it!”

Bellamy was still crouching behind the projector and grinning, though it was small and closed-lipped, and Harper and Raven looked like they were in favor of it, too. Monty was carefully occupying himself with picking at a thread on the quilt draped over his legs, but his lips twitched, perhaps more at Jasper than Murphy.

Everyone looked so delighted that he might have gone for it, if it wouldn’t have set a precedent for Murphy being the damn dancing monkey.

“Why don’t you do it, if it’s such a brilliant idea? Not sure I could maintain it, but if memory serves, Goggles, _you_ never shut up.”

And instead of laughing, or making any sort of retort, Jasper’s face closed off like an iron curtain had fallen on it.

“Don’t be a dick, Murphy,” snapped Monty, with shocking acidity. Murphy turned back toward the group entirely, frowning as everyone but Bellamy avoided his eyes.

“What? I didn’t even…” He looked at Jasper, bewildered, who had stopped hugging his pillow and laid his hands upon it, fiddling with his goggles, a crease between his brows. “It was a _joke.”_

“You tried to kill him for being loud, and then you tied him up and gagged him for telling on you to Bellamy, you jerk,” snarled Harper. “Bit soon for jokes.”

“I…” he began, looking around helplessly as Bellamy jerked his head in Jasper’s direction. Jasper looked trodden and awkward and even a bit angry, and Murphy sighed, throwing his hands up and letting them fall against his sides. _“Sorry,_ okay? Is that what you wanna hear?”

Bellamy cringed, and Murphy belatedly realized what a shit apology he thought those very same words were when Bellamy said them, that afternoon in the dropship when he’d beaten Jasper with the butt of a rifle, bound and gagged him tight, and watched tears and snot leak down his terrified face.

“It’s fine,” Jasper replied quietly, climbing to his feet, the big purple pillow falling over forgotten. “I'm tired, anyway. I’ll just see you guys in the morning.”

They watched him go, shuffling out of the common area and looking, despite his height, awfully small. Nobody said a word until he was long gone, off to the bedroom with no door, because Monty had the poor idiot on suicide watch.

He hadn’t meant to upset the poor idiot on suicide watch.

“Wow, Murphy,” said Harper, seemingly astonished. “That truly sucked.”

***

Murphy wasn’t a villain.

Bellamy, Raven, and Emori had gotten to know him, had seen him do real people things, like laugh and cry and— he supposed if Bellamy and Raven were looking closely enough— love. 

The other half of the crew? Not so much.

Harper teased and made an effort to be normal, but was obviously unsure what to make of him. Monty tried to accept Murphy’s presence, even include him on good days, but had an uncharacteristically short temper with him. And Jasper…

Jasper hadn’t said a word to Murphy since he’d fled from movie night three weeks ago. Whether he thought Murphy would string him up and gut him for speaking or he was just making a point was hard to say, but either way, it grated on Murphy’s nerves. Then it grated on Murphy’s nerves some more— that it bothered him at all what fucking _Goggles_ thought of him.

He _wasn’t_ a villain.

Was he?

Murphy just tried to ignore him, as he skulked around the Ring doing god knew what with his time seeing as, despite his apparent experience with growing herbs, he hadn’t helped Monty and Harper with the algae farm at all.

The algae farm that they were all, at present, gathered in, staring at the flask of mysterious dark green liquid in Monty’s gloved hands.

“I’ve tested it for toxins, but the equipment here is complicated, and I’m not an expert. But, er, but I think this batch should be okay,” he explained, cradling his slimy, possible success like a precious thing.

“And if there _are_ toxins?” asked Emori, peering suspiciously at the algae as if it might have jumped out at her.

“Well, algae can produce either microcystins or anatoxins. If there are microcystins, well, that’ll attack your liver. So we’re talking vomiting, jaundice, internal bleeding, disorientation, seizures, shock, coma, or death.”

“That’s probably the worse one of the two, then, right?” said Raven, grimacing.

“If there are anatoxins, they’ll go for the nervous system. So, muscle tremors, overactive mucous membrane secretions—“

_“Secretions?”_ repeated Bellamy.

“—paralysis, oxygen deprivation, respiratory failure, seizures, coma, or… death.”

“Could be worse,” Murphy shrugged. “Could get explosive diarrhea.”

“You… might also get explosive diarrhea,” mentioned Monty.

Murphy nodded agreeably. “Great.”

They stood gathered around the terrifying little flask a moment longer, staring and little else, before Harper clapped her gloved hands together. “So who wants to try it?”

Murphy’s heart sank as the eyes began to dart around.

He knew this part. The part where they did simple math, and Murphy just didn’t fit into the equation, and everyone pretended to be thinking hard about it.

Raven and Monty were no-go’s. Harper, Bellamy, and Emori made themselves useful, and picked up new skills every day.

That left him and Goggles, the poor idiot on suicide watch, whose hand was already twitching toward the flask.

Murphy could read his mind. If he lived, he’d have been helpful. If he died, well… that wouldn’t be so bad. Would it?

“I’ll do it.”

The darting eyes fell on him, and Jasper’s fist curled closed.

“What?” Emori croaked.

Murphy took a deep breath, stepping forward and holding out a hand to the farmer. “Give it here. I’m drinking it.”

Monty’s lips thinned, the neck of the flask squeaking as he clenched his fist around it. “Murphy, are you sure?”

Murphy glanced over his shoulder, at Raven with her hands clasped worriedly beneath her chin, Bellamy’s arms crossed tight and forehead creased like he was thinking of diving forward and slapping the flask from Monty’s hand and making a general fuss, and Emori looking conflicted and terrified, sweat beading on her face tattoo. 

Jasper’s face was pale and blank, and he looked as if he knew he’d been caught out. Murphy, in a clear moment of delirium, hoped Goggles wouldn’t blame himself if anything happened.

Turning back to Monty, Murphy offered him a smile that was only a little bit sarcastic. “Looks delicious.” Monty’s fingers unfurled slowly, releasing the wide, flat bottom of the flask into Murphy’s open palm.

“Just a sip,” Monty whispered, and sounded like he was saying _please._

And Murphy did what Murphys do, and drank.

The goop was thick, brackish, and earthy on his tongue, and Murphy winced as he practically chewed it down, the stuff apparently unwilling to decide whether it was a liquid or a solid.

He tilted his head forward again once it was down, handing the flask back to Monty and cracking an eye open to offer a grimace of a smile. Then he gave a thumbs up, a gesture that had the group letting out a collective sigh of relief that flattered Murphy somewhat. Maybe they _did_ care. Or maybe they were just glad they didn’t have to be the ones to drink it. 

“Feeling a coma coming on?” asked Raven, loosening her wringing hands.

“Just peachy,” said Murphy, inclining his head toward Monty and Harper. “My compliments to the chefs.”

“You _are_ looking a bit jaundiced, but maybe that’s just you,” Harper jabbed, and Murphy curled his lip in a mocking charade of a laugh.

“You’ll regret picking on me when I drop dead, McIntyre.”

“John!” Emori scolded, rushing forward to squeeze him around the ribs, practically punching the breath from him. “Don’t even joke.”

“I’m fine, ‘Mori,” he soothed, holding her close, smoothing a hand down her hair as Jasper Jordan met his stare over her shoulder at long last, his eyes beginning to glimmer wet with gratitude, terror, or hatred. God knew. “I’m fine.”

Their day went back to normal after that, though Murphy was under strict orders to never wander off alone for the remainder of the week, in case anything… happened.

Since he couldn’t laze about in bed or go for a walk through the corridors, he’d been tasked with helping Bellamy get the med-bay in order.

Bellamy was taking inventory in a way that seemed tedious and unnecessary for a group of seven, scribbling at his little clipboard, but Murphy knew he wanted to keep busy and let him be. 

It was _his_ job to re-organize the medicine cabinets, which seemed like they’d been pillaged before the exodus from the Ark. Pills and their bottles were strewn about and mixed up, scattered around. Any stray pills that could not be clearly matched needed to be thrown out, but Murphy hated to waste perfectly good medicine, and found himself often summoning Bellamy over to inspect loose pills.

It was a sort of uncomfortable affair, Murphy getting quickly tired of squatting and sitting on his knees, his arms trembling from reaching around in the cabinets, his vision blurred and unfocused from time spent glaring at tiny labels. He must not have slept well, and hadn’t been drinking nearly enough water, but wanted to get this job done for Bellamy before he fucked off to be useless again.

“Does this look oblong or oval to you?” he asked, holding up a little dusty white pill.

Bellamy came over and crouched to narrow his eyes at the pill, making a thoughtful hum. “Oblong.”

“I thought it was oval,” said Murphy, squinting at it.

“Why’d you even ask, then?”

“Just in case it was oblong.”

“Well, I’m telling you I think it’s…” Bellamy trailed off, suddenly reaching up to still Murphy’s trembling hand.

“You’re blue, Murphy.”

Murphy frowned, glancing down at his hand in Bellamy’s. Indeed, his fingertips had turned blue as though freezing, though he was not cold, and the splotchy discoloration danced down his palms, too.

Bellamy lifted his eyes in tandem with Murphy and they met each other’s befuddled gazes, only for Bellamy’s eyes to widen in surprise. “Your lips are blue.”

Murphy had half a mind to ask if the color suited him, before everything got rather weird rather fast, and it didn’t seem all that funny anymore.

As if all at once, his blurry vision tumbled apart into tears, falling down his face like they might never have stopped though Murphy, for once, was not sad. “I’m sorry?” he said, wiping his eyes with the heel of his palm to no avail, as Bellamy stared on in horror. Then Murphy’s breathing became fast, devolving into labored wheezing within seconds, though it might have been building up for some time now, and he’d been writing it off as a reaction to the dust that was floating about everywhere on the supermassive casket that was the Ring. And worst of all, drool pooled beneath his tongue and though he swallowed and swallowed he couldn’t stop it all, and was mortified as saliva dripped from his mouth and into his cupped palm, staring up at Bellamy helplessly.

“Oh my God,” Bellamy said, the wideness of his eyes scaring Murphy more than anything else, and grabbed Murphy under the arms, repeating, “Oh my God,” as he stood and raised Murphy with him. Murphy, who was suddenly weak and flimsy like a truly useless thing, his legs giving out beneath him. 

To Bellamy’s credit he didn’t panic too badly, whereas Murphy might have panicked, should have panicked, but felt he didn’t have it in him to be anything but deeply, deeply confused. Bellamy only scooped an arm under Murphy’s knees and held him to his chest, rushing them from the room before realizing they were already in the med-bay and turning heel back inside. 

He deposited Murphy carefully onto one of the beds, and Murphy’s head bounced off of the mattress but he could not feel it, and Bellamy was suddenly looking terribly sorry.

“I need to get help,” he said, his big hand pressed against Murphy’s stuttering chest in apology. “Hang on, Murphy.”

And Murphy could not move anymore, not even to wipe the drool from his cheek or the snot from his nose or the many tears from his eyes. It was all he could do to keep them on Bellamy, who had to have known he would try his best to be alive when he got back.

And, oh, how Murphy had tried.

***

For a long time there was a dark room on fire, and then Murphy awoke to a million frogs.

He’d been terrified, at first, so it had taken him a while to appreciate the novelty of such a thing. He knew he was in the med-bay, recognized the baby blue screen dividers on either side of him and the metal rails of the hospital bed and the IV nestled into his arm. But he’d dreamt for so long of being trapped in that dark room on fire, and woken up muddled and hazy, feeling sure that he’d still be drowning in snot when he came to entirely.

But he caught his breath in time, and when his vision came into focus and he could use his brain properly again, he counted the frogs.

They were made of folded, pale green notebook paper, and there were thirty-five of them, scattered about the medicine counter and the beds and the bedside tables. There was one that had been placed right in his lap, looking especially silly with a pair of great big eyes doodled onto it.

Then there was the silliest thing of all: Jasper Jordan curled up in the chair beside Murphy’s bed, dark goggles shielding his eyes from the fluorescent lights.

Murphy wasn’t sure if he could move again, and so did not try for fear he’d still be paralyzed, choosing blissful ignorance for just a few more minutes. 

“Goggles,” Murphy croaked instead of getting up, his voice hoarse and his mouth so dry he thought his tongue might crack apart. The boy made no especially urgent movements, stirring a bit and smacking his lips, and Murphy bristled. _“Jordan.”_

“Hrm,” Jasper grumbled, intelligently. “G’away.”

Murphy frowned. Immobile patient, here. _“Bellamy!”_

To Murphy’s great offense, Bellamy did not come barreling in to dote on him. He didn’t want to bother Emori, who must have been working if she wasn’t there. So he was stuck with _him._

_“Jasper,”_ Murphy sighed at last, feeling a bit like he was begging, now, and unnerved when Jasper finally roused, at that. He picked his head up off his knees and unhurriedly swiveled to glance at Murphy, still smacking his lips as he met Murphy’s bored stare.

Then realization hit, and Jasper shot up from his chair and yanked the goggles from his eyes, shoving them back on his head so his short hair stabbed wildly in every direction. There were deep red lines carved into his face, tracing the outline of a pair of goggles over Jasper’s cheeks and brows, and Murphy found it obnoxiously endearing, rolling his eyes.

“You’re awake.”

“I’m awake.”

Jasper blinked at him a moment longer, before approaching Murphy’s bedside with a sincerity that prompted Murphy to find it in him to move so that he could scoot away, pressing himself against the opposite railing. “What?” he snapped, as Jasper gripped the bedrails and bowed his head.

“Look, Murphy,” he began, his voice creepily tentative and gentle. “We both know you and I are the expendable ones up here.”

“Off to a good start,” Murphy muttered.

“Just listen, would you?” Jasper insisted, and Murphy pressed his lips together, begrudgingly. “It was you or me. I don’t know why you jumped in front of the algae bullet for me, but I… I owe you one.”

Murphy shook his head, avoiding the genuine… _everything_ of Jasper. “You don’t owe me anything, Goggles.”

Though he still couldn’t meet Murphy’s eyes for long, his gaze darting around the blankets and the shape of Murphy’s legs beneath them, the kid was being too intense for Murphy’s liking. “Just… don’t die to prove that you’re a good person, okay? I believe you.” 

“Someone’s presumptuous,” huffed Murphy.

“Tried to tell Bellamy not to read that dictionary to you while you were out. Knew you’d use it for evil,” Jasper joked, still looking away, and Murphy _almost_ laughed.

“I should have let you drink the damn algae,” he said instead, and Jasper only smiled, mumbling something about getting the others and making his way toward the hall.

“Wait,” Murphy called after him, pausing Jasper in the doorway. “How long was I out?”

Jasper scratched his ear, and gave a sheepish little shrug as he looked around at the innocuous origami frogs. “Thirty-five days, give or take.”

***

While Murphy was comatose Monty had perfected the next batch of algae, the initial trials of which had apparently prompted a wrestling match between Jasper and Bellamy over the flask. Bellamy had prevailed, and then he’d survived.

Today was their last ‘real food’ meal, and Murphy ate his fraction of his and Emori’s final MRE very, very slowly, savoring the taste of Menu 23. He’d taken the pizza slice and oatmeal cookie from the vacuum-sealed pack, and Emori had claimed the blueberry cobbler, the vegetable crackers, and was at present mixing her cheese powder into a gooey spread with intense focus.

Pretty good stuff in those. Murphy would be sad to see them go.

“Remember when we pumped Murphy’s stomach?” said Jasper, gnawing on a hard-looking slab of ancient wheat bread slathered with strawberry jam.

“Please don’t bring that up at the table,” Bellamy muttered, picking at something called ‘chicken chunks.’

“Feels like it was just yesterday,” Murphy sighed, grinning as Emori elbowed him. “Wouldn’t have taken you lot for a bunch of doctors.”

“You probably have the most medical experience, huh, Murphy?” said Harper, picking at a pouch of trail mix. “Being in and out of the hospital and all.”

Murphy tried not to look like a storm cloud had gathered over his head at the reminder, lowering his eyes and retreating to his food. “I guess.”

“You were?” Emori asked, and Murphy shook his head, but goddamned McIntyre opened her big mouth again anyway.

“Yeah, I knew Murphy in grade school. He was like, super sickly. Always missing class ‘cause he was seeing Dr. Griffin. That’s why his medicine rations were out when—“

Murphy didn’t stay to hear the rest of the story, getting up from the table and striding toward the door.

“Ah, shit,” Harper murmured as Bellamy began to scold her in a hushed voice, quiet arguments breaking out all across the table.

Murphy kept walking, boots falling hard and echoing in the silence of the empty station, until he was on the dark side of the ship. Then he backed himself up against the cold wall and sank to the bottom of it, pulling his knees to his chest.

The floor was freezing. They’d kept the power off for a lot of the corridors on the Ring to save energy, but Murphy also wondered if Bellamy had it that way just because he didn’t want anyone wandering off too far. He’d gotten clingy, lately.

Murphy liked to go to those corridors when things were shit, and pretend he was wading through the black woods at night, banished. He’d walk the halls until his legs were tired and he was shivering, and had even slept there on occasion, but usually woke up with a runny nose and a really angry girlfriend.

Maybe he was punishing himself. Maybe he wanted to feel sorry for himself. Maybe he just wanted to feel like a ghost, a lost and invisible soul, wandering on.

The Ring was so stale. Each day the temperature was just right, no wind or rain or warm sunlight, which was unbearable now that he’d known it for himself. There were always the same tasks to be done or none at all. Murphy could hardly find anything to entertain himself with when Emori was with Raven: a pack of cards, or a boring book with too-long words, or yet another nap. He’d only dream of that burning room again.

At least when he was shivering and aching and alone and sorry, he _felt_ something. So he had that to be grateful for.

Murphy was challenging himself to sit and stare at the metal wall for as long as he could, perhaps until he decayed and died, when quiet, shuffling footfall came echoing down the hall.

Emori walked quickly, and Raven limped, and Bellamy stomped. Monty did not shuffle, and Harper would have spoken up by now.

“Not in the mood, Goggles,” Murphy muttered, his rasp too loud and rough to his own ears in the empty corridor.

Jasper only carried on coming, folding onto his knees next to Murphy and then his rear, facing the featureless wall with him.

“It’s quiet out here,” Jasper said, and his voice was so soft that Murphy wasn’t even mad about it.

“It _was,”_ he snapped anyway.

“Interesting wall.” Jasper nudged him carefully. “But I think I have something more fun in mind,” he said, trying to sound enticing.

“I’m not going back. Piss off.”

“Not there. Somewhere else. Come on,” implored Jasper, inclining his head toward Murphy. “Just me and you.”

“Oh, joy.”

Jasper unfolded all his gangly limbs and clambered up standing again, reaching out a hand to Murphy. His long, nimble fingers looked suited to careful work and gentle things, and Murphy glared down at his own hands over his knees, his own palms wide and thick knuckles scarred. Maybe he was made for breaking things, hurting things, ruining them. For a moment, looking at Jasper’s open hand, he thought he might cry.

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

Jasper’s lips parted in sad surprise at that, and though his fingers twitched, he kept his hand out.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I think I feel sorry for you. I’m sorry if that’s rude.”

“It is,” Murphy laughed, wiping his eyes.

“Please don’t punch me.”

“You’re no fun to punch,” he sighed, and allowed Jasper to bravely wedge his fingers beneath one of the hands clasped over Murphy’s knees, wiggling them beneath Murphy’s palm until he was holding his hand. Then Jasper gingerly pulled on his arm, hoping to make him stand up, and Murphy obliged.

“I was saving this for a special occasion,” Jasper explained, as Murphy dubiously followed him back toward the fraction of the Ring that was alight and an appropriate amount of outer-space cold, trying to get the knot in his throat and the emotional blush on his face under control. “I think you surviving Monty’s algae is cause enough.”

Murphy didn’t speak as Jasper led them into his bedroom and pulled his makeshift curtain closed behind them, rolling his eyes as Murphy quirked a brow at his persisting lack of door.

“I’m being cooperative,” he explained, rifling through a storage crate in the corner, blankets and clothes falling over the sides until he reached the very bottom of it, and held up a plastic bag with a wide, devious smile on his face.

“What the hell is that?” Murphy snatched the bag from his hands and inspected its contents, jiggling the bag around to shake what looked like clumps of dry grass inside. Jasper snatched it back protectively, cradling the bag against his chest.

“It’s weed, dude. I found it in Shumway’s old desk. You remember Shumway? Must have been crooked!”

Oh, he remembered Shumway. 

Murphy’s fire was one of the worst crimes he could have committed, worse than murder, because he didn’t even reduce their population for them. All he did was burn up their precious oxygen and destroy perfectly good supplies. All he did was threaten an officer, which meant every officer in the whole damn Guard would terrorize him for the rest of his sorry excuse for an adolescence.

He remembered Shumway well. Remembered the Commander snatching Murphy by the collar of his shirt as he ran as fast as his little legs would carry him. There was nowhere to go, but Murphy was prepared to run in circles around the Ark forever if it meant not getting floated. He remembered Shumway jabbing a shock baton into his back, bravely avenging a brother-in-arms whose furniture had suffered at the hands of an eighth grader with a lighter, who had just missed his parents so terribly that morning.

“Anyway,” said Jasper, sunnily oblivious to the places he had sent Murphy. “You’re gonna love it.”

Murphy frowned, eyeing the weed. “What do you do? Eat it?”

“You could!” Jasper laughed. “But you and I, we’re gonna smoke it.”

“Oh,” said Murphy, still frowning. He’d never ‘smoked’ anything.

Jasper then kneeled and turned his crate over so the flat bottom of it was facing up and stood on it, reaching toward the top of the wall. Digging his fingertips behind the edge of a vent, he slowly peeled the creaking metal forward until it popped out of its socket. He swept his hand around inside the vent for a moment, before he said, _“Aha!”_ and retrieved something, tossing it down to Murphy.

Murphy caught it, turning the little red lighter over in his hands, somewhat impressed. “Bellamy’ll kill you.”

“Exactly why I’ve been hiding it,” Jasper said, fishing something else out of the vent and cradling it in his arms before replacing the vent cover and hopping down from his crate.

Murphy stared, bewildered, at the contraption in Jasper’s hands, which he planted proudly onto the crate. “Pinched an Erlenmeyer flask from the lab, and some sort of tube thingy. Voilà. Homemade bong,” he explained, peering into the bottom of the flask where a hole had been drilled and a tube poked through it, messily duct-taped. A small funnel was taped to the other end of the tube, which Jasper began crumbling and sprinkling shreds of weed into as he picked them off of the clumps in his precious baggie.

“Pass me the water jug on the shelf, will you?” he asked, and Murphy obeyed, becoming increasingly impressed as Jasper worked. Jasper tipped some of his water rations into the flask, and then grinned up at Murphy as he noticed him sitting cross-legged and curious on the other side of the crate.

“Watch and learn,” he said, bringing the rim of the bong up to his mouth and plucking the lighter from Murphy’s hand to briefly hold it to the weed he’d packed into the little funnel. The smoke tumbled up to the top of the flask, fogging up the glass, and the water inside bubbled as Jasper closed his eyes and inhaled for a long, long time.

Murphy leaned away, cringing, as Jasper finally blew out a cloud of smoke, coughing and laughing and squinting, holding his insane contraption out to Murphy.

“Too big,” he said, cringing, his voice bulbous as if holding back another cough. “You should probably take a smaller hit. Jeez, I’m a terrible role model.” 

Murphy took the flask and the lighter warily, and Jasper suddenly held out his hands in apology. “You don’t have to take _any_ hits if you don’t want to! I just figured, since you were sad…”

“Shut it, Goggles,” Murphy huffed, jamming the flask against his mouth and holding the lighter over the weed until it burned, and breathed in the subsequent smoke. He was not _sad._

When he breathed out again it was with a great, hacking cough that had Jasper rolling for whatever reason, and Murphy couldn’t help but laugh too, blurting out another cloud of smoke as he did that got Jasper cackling all over again.

“You did great!” Jasper crowed, beaming at Murphy as he took the flask for another hit of his own, and Murphy smiled back, real and wide and terrible, and didn’t even want it to stop. 

“Was something supposed to happen?” Murphy asked, feeling little more than his heart beating a bit faster, his muscles relaxing in the calm, joyful company of Goggles, who maybe wasn’t half bad, actually.

“Give it a minute,” Jasper said, before taking another bubbling rip and breathing a massive, hypnotizing plume of smoke. Way bigger than Murphy’s, who was already feeling a bit competitive about it.

So a minute he gave it, and an embarrassingly short amount of time had passed before Murphy was flopped on his back, sprawled out on the floor and listening to Jasper tell exactly the kind of jokes Murphy hated, participating in them entirely.

“How do you make a tissue dance?” Jasper asked, lounging on his mattress, his head hanging off the edge of it, upside down and crooked toward Murphy.

“How?” he asked, gazing half-lidded at Jasper.

“You put a little boogie in it,” he said, and Murphy sneered, first, because it wasn’t funny, and then rolled over onto his face so he could laugh and laugh and laugh until his shoulders shook, and no one could see him. But Jasper still knew, and Murphy didn’t much mind that.

“Are you hungry, too?” he asked, once Murphy had finished laughing, boneless against the floor again.

“We didn’t finish eating,” Murphy remembered, lifting himself up to look at Jasper in shock. “We should go get our food.”

“I agree,” said Jasper, peeling himself off the mattress and flinging his bedroom curtain aside. Murphy crawled, slowly rising until he was standing, and followed him into the hall.

They walked quietly, hoping to avoid the others in case they got in trouble for wasting water rations on the bong and playing with fire on a space station, or in case Harper tried to apologize to Murphy, which he still wasn’t high enough to deal with.

The common area was just around the corner when Bellamy suddenly emerged from his own room like the rude wall of muscle he was, bumping into Murphy and knocking him into Jasper.

They didn’t tumble into a pile but it was a near thing, and Jasper giggled and shoved Murphy off of him, bouncing him back into Bellamy. Murphy was starting to feel like a pinball, and grinned gratefully at Bellamy as the man caught him by the arms and steadied him.

“Harper’s sorry,” he said abruptly, worried, and Murphy shrugged.

“‘Kay.”

“‘Kay?” Bellamy repeated, quirking a brow. Murphy shrugged again, clapping Jasper on the shoulder.

“Always a pleasure, Bellamy, but if you’ll excuse us, we’re getting my cookie.”

“Uh, yeah,” Bellamy said, scratching his ear as he kept that suspicious stare flicking between the two of them. “We left your food on the table.”

“That’s so unhygienic. We’re gonna get _space rats,_ ” said Jasper, and Murphy snorted, inclining his head respectfully toward Bellamy as Jasper saluted him and they took off again, pursuing Operation GMOC (Get Murphy’s Oatmeal Cookie).

“That’s what we should call the group,” Murphy decided as they came upon the table, spotless, save for Jasper’s hard-ass bread and Murphy’s crumbling, half-eaten cookie. “Space rats.”

“I like it,” said Jasper, his mouth full and the corner of his lips smeared with jam, staring thoughtfully and red-eyed at his awful wheat slab. “Is it just me, or does this taste way better now?”

“Way better,” agreed Murphy, wolfing the dry cookie down. 

Not just the food, either, Murphy thought, smiling as Jasper pointed and laughed at the crumbs on Murphy’s shirt. Quite a few things seemed to be better with Jasper.

***

Murphy swore he had never had a good dream, at least never in the last seven years.

He couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was about, but it wasn’t that damn burning room, and he woke up slow, and calm, and comfortable. He stretched leisurely, reaching out and tightening his grip around Emori, turning his face into her shoulder.

Emori, who felt alarmingly bony, and… flat.

Murphy opened his eyes with a jolt, yanking his head off of Jasper’s chest and wrestling his way out of Jasper’s gangly goddamn arms, and yelped as he toppled off the side of the mattress.

When he gathered his bearings at last Murphy sat up on his elbows, turning pink all over as Bellamy, Raven, Emori, Harper, and Monty stood over the mattress, Bellamy holding Jasper’s brilliant makeshift bong up in one hand, the little red lighter in the other.

Ah, shit.

“Have fun last night?” asked Bellamy, brow raised high.

“His idea,” Murphy blurted, jerking a thumb at Jasper, who snored unhelpfully in response. 

Jackass.

***

Bellamy confiscated the bong, but Murphy had something he was saving for a special occasion too.

“I’m shirts, you’re skins,” Jasper said quickly, though Murphy hadn’t even invited him to play yet, drawing the soccer ball out from the storage room he’d found it in.

“There’s only two of us. Nobody needs to take their shirt off.”

Murphy ended up taking his shirt off, and they cleared the common area, positioning two long tables at either end of the big room to be their respective goals.

“I can keep score?” Raven offered, looking uncharacteristically shy as she stood in the doorway and held a tablet to her chest. “Sorry for butting in. Emori's still going strong, but the comms room is getting a little…”

“Boring?” Jasper prompted, “Exhausting? Soul-crushing? Even geniuses need breaks?”

“Something like that,” Raven admitted, and quirked her lips in a smile, abandoning her tablet full of diagnostics and blueprints and charts and _whatevers_ on a nearby table. Murphy honestly didn’t even know what she was working on, but apparently it took a lot to keep a space station running. Who knew?

Raven scrounged up a notepad and a stubby pencil from her mechanic’s apron and carefully stretched to perch herself on the edge of the table, raising her brows as she apparently felt welcomed enough to begin teasing Murphy.

“Looking good, cockroach.”

Murphy held out his arms, a bit secretly pleased that nobody had yet vomited at his abundance of scars. “Like what you see?”

“I’m drooling,” Raven deadpanned, flipping nonchalantly to a fresh page of her notepad, but Murphy was pretty sure she was blushing.

“He’s skins, I’m shirts,” Jasper explained, passing the ball between the sides of his feet as he warmed up.

“But there’s only—“

Murphy shook his head to signal that it wasn’t worth it, and Raven trailed off, frowning.

“You ready to get your ass kicked?” Murphy asked, and Jasper grinned, parking the ball under the heel of his boot.

“Your arrogance will be your downfall, my friend,” said Jasper, and Murphy froze.

“My—?” he began, and then spluttered as Jasper reeled back and kicked the ball clear across the common room, practically right between Murphy’s legs, and it slammed against the wall with a mighty _boing._

_“WAHOO!”_ Jasper cheered, flinging his hands up and spinning in a celebratory circle, once, before running to sprint circles around Murphy, pumping his fists. “Hole in one!”  


“That’s _golf!”_ Murphy screamed, shoving Jasper to make him stop. Jasper shoved back, hard, the smile falling from his face somewhat, and Murphy stumbled.

“Chill out,” warned Jasper, though his voice was timid.

“I was kidding,” Murphy grumbled, kneeling to retrieve the ball from beneath the table-goal.

“Whatever, let’s go again,” Jasper muttered. “Sore loser.”

Murphy pretended not to hear that, chancing a glance at the knitted brows of a difficult-to-decipher Raven on his way to the middle.

Okay, so, maybe they still had some issues to work out.

“You ready?” Murphy said politely, no ass-kicking mentioned. Jasper rolled his eyes, appreciating the sentiment.

“Hit me with your best shot, you big bully.”

Murphy set the ball in the center circle they’d drawn on the floor, and though they’d both promised not to do this, drew back and kicked it as hard as he could. Because Jasper had, and it was only fair if he got to do it too, damn it.

The ball launched off so hard and fast it might as well have left a smoke trail, ricocheting off of the wall far above the goal then bouncing off a table and flying back over their heads, headed for the open doorway where Bellamy now stood, looking down at a DVD in his hands. “Hey guys, did you move the projector?” he asked, entirely unaware of the ball flying toward his face like a heat-seeking missile.

“Oh, crap,” murmured Jasper.

***

Bellamy confiscated the soccer ball.

***

That wasn’t the last time Jasper called Murphy a friend. He kept saying it. Friends, friends, friends. Murphy had never made an easier friend in all his life.

He kept rolling the word over and over on his tongue, but could never quite blurt it out. It felt flimsy and fleeting and childish. It felt like Jasper might take it away again, and Murphy didn’t want to be terribly attached to the word when he did. _Friends._

Everyone else had made friends, too, a year in. Bellamy and Raven were closer than ever, and Jasper was bonding even more with Harper, and everyone already loved Monty, and Raven and Emori seemed to be the _best_ of friends.

They were always together, damn near every waking moment. If Emori wasn’t with Murphy— which she so rarely was these days— she was with Raven. Working together, walking together, laughing together. _Everything._ All Murphy had left were their nights, but even the sex had gotten… distant, somehow.

On the increasingly infrequent occasions that either of them prompted foreplay, Murphy felt clingy and Emori seemed downright bored, leaving one of them to claim tiredness or stomach aches or anything else they could think of to roll away and save them both the humiliation. Each time, they seemed to think they’d be able to make a spark again. Then… poof. Nothing.

With a flat-lining sex life, their saving grace was falling asleep in each other’s arms, comfortable feeling someone else’s skin, knowing they were not alone. It may not have been romantic, may have just been the very last shreds of them, but it was _something._

Then there was now, as Emori gathered her favorite quilt around her shoulders and furiously brushed her teeth, even though the restroom was down the corridor. She was making to leave with the blanket, but stopped in the doorway, like Murphy was an afterthought.

“I’m having a _sleepover_ with Raven,” she announced happily, somewhat muffled by the bubbles of toothpaste in her cheeks.

Sat on the edge of the mattress untying his boots, Murphy smiled, at first, but it was faltering.

“You’re sleeping there?” he asked.

“Yes! That’s the point. At sleepovers you stay up all night and talk and tell secrets, and then you fall asleep with your friend. Raven has alcohol, even.”

Murphy wanted alcohol. “Oh,” he said, looking down at the mattress that suddenly seemed far too big for any amount of people, let alone one. “Fine.”

Emori stopped brushing, knitting her brows so her tattoo crinkled between them. “Fine?”

Murphy shrugged, returning to jerking his laces apart. “Whatever. Have fun.”

“What’s wrong, John?” she sighed, like he was a chore. She was doing that a lot, recently. Sighing.

“Nothing,” he mumbled. “Have a good _Murphy-free_ night.”

Emori circled the mattress, coming to stand in front of him. “Don’t be ugly.”

“I’m not being ugly,” he grumbled, yanking on a boot, getting it stuck on his heel, and yanking again until it flew off and smacked the wall behind her. “Go have fun with Raven.”

“I have fun with you, too,” Emori tried to appease him, hooking a finger under his chin to make him look up at her. Murphy could feel tears rising up already, and inwardly cursed himself. There was something wrong with his tear ducts; he always cried so quickly. He wasn’t even fucking upset. Especially not over _this._

“No you don’t,” he said quietly, meeting her pretty hazel eyes that never looked at him with love, anymore. “I’m a chore.”

“John Murphy, you are not a _chore,”_ she said, kneeling before him, still with a white smudge of toothpaste on her lips. “I just want us to make friends. We can’t always only have each other.”

“Why not?” he asked, and his voice sounded shivery and childish and pathetic.

Emori’s smile was sad, and she stroked his cheek with a gentle thumb. “We’re not _surviving_ anymore, John. This is the part where we live.”

“So we’re safe now, and you don’t want me anymore? That it?” asked Murphy.

Emori’s hand fell, and she stood again, putting space between them once more. “I never said that. You’re being unfair.”

“You know what’s unfair?” Murphy said, violently shaking his pillow into shape. “Soon as the going gets good, you just ditch me. Face it, you don’t even like being around me.”

“Not when you’re _moping_ around all day, I don’t! Who would?!”

“Go hang out with fucking perfect Raven, then,” Murphy snapped, glaring holes into the mattress. “I’ll still be here when you get back, like always.”

“Actually?” Emori laughed, with so much bitterness in the sound like she’d been waiting ages to do it, and turned in the doorway to sneer over her shoulder. “Don’t wait up.”

And then she slammed the door shut behind her, and Murphy was alone again.

***

Sleeping by himself wasn’t so bad on the dark side of the ship, where the warmth of his own limbs were a comfort against the cold floor. He could help himself. Hold himself. 

His skin was still of use to someone.

***

They stopped asking him to come back after a few weeks, since Murphy practically played dead when they came around.

Raven visited sometimes, but she was so busy and it only upset her that nothing she said would cheer Murphy up. She tried to hold him once, reaching out a friendly arm to wrap around him, but he hastily moved away and that must have either pissed her off or broken her heart, because she never tried again.

Monty came by at first to try and convince him there were practical reasons to return even if he hated every single one of them, insisting he had jobs for Murphy to do and telling him all the terrible things sleeping on the hard floor must be doing to his bones, but his tough love routine wasn’t working, and he had nothing softer to offer Murphy.

Harper brought board games, sometimes. Murphy played checkers with her once, but he lost, so they didn’t play again.

Emori came on the third week. Her visit only made him surer that he’d never return.

Jasper never came.

“How’s Goggles?” Murphy asked, his voice gritty from disuse. 

“He’s… He’s not doing great, Murph,” answered Bellamy, who came around the most. He was sat next to Murphy on the cold floor, arms crossed over his knees. “Lost his curtain privileges. Rotates between us, sleeping on someone’s floor every night. Can’t leave him alone.”

Murphy handed his bowl to Bellamy, who peered into it and then handed it back. Murphy rolled his eyes and obediently slurped the rest of the algae down, shoving it into Bellamy’s chest.

He half hoped Bellamy would leave now that he was done eating, because Murphy was supposed to be alone, but decided not to kick up a fuss when Bellamy placed the bowl aside and stayed seated, gazing at the wall across from them.

“I don’t have to worry about you, too, do I?” he asked, his voice unusually smooth and quiet, like an eroded stone. “Not anymore than I already do?”

Murphy’s heart clenched. He never asked Bellamy to worry about him. “I wouldn’t do anything like that. I’m not a _coward.”_

Bellamy grunted noncommittally, probably disagreeing with Murphy’s insensitivity but choosing not to pick a fight over it. Smartly. Murphy was not in the debating mood.

A moment of tense quiet washed between them. Bellamy had something he wanted to say, and Murphy had all the time in the world.

“I’d sleep better, if I knew you were safe,” he confessed at last. “If I knew you were somewhere warm.”

“I run hot, Bell,” Murphy sighed, perching his chin on his knees. “Don’t toss and turn over me.”

Bellamy sighed, reaching out to wrap an arm around Murphy and bring him, if not home, then closer. Murphy didn’t want to fight him, and lay his head upon Bellamy’s shoulder. He was tired of fighting.

***

Three months into his isolation, Murphy saw Jasper again.

He hadn’t come to see Murphy, though.

No, his sluggish stride was echoing a corridor down, passing Murphy’s nook beside the big viewing window and heading on toward the stern, the quarter of the ring that housed the Chancellor’s office and that of other high-ranking officials’. That way also lied some top secret rooms with old-timey padlocks and deadbolts— in case of a power outage— that Murphy hadn’t been able to bust, some boring meeting rooms, and the courthouse that, in Murphy’s highly-valued opinion, had been severely underused. All surrounding the disturbing corridor that fed into the Skybox.

And the airlock.

Murphy had hardly moved the past few months, but he ran like hell.

“JASPER,” he roared, pounding down the dark hallways that he thought he’d learned but which seemed a maze to him now, sending his boots squeaking at dead-ends and skidding at unexpected splits of the ghastly passageways.

His lungs burned. His legs ached. His stomach roiled, as he came upon the airlock at last, watching Jasper shut himself inside with the vacuum-sealed hiss of the massive automatic doors.

“Jasper,” he said, his voice trembling as he tried to pry the cold, metal doors open with his fingers to no avail. “Jasper, don’t be an idiot, alright? Get out of there.”

Jasper shook his head, standing near the release lever on the inside of the airlock and aiming a sad smile at him that made Murphy want to rip his face off. “Leave it alone, Murphy. You can turn around and pretend you never even saw me. This isn’t your fight.”

Murphy swore, fumbling to lift the cover on the airlock controls, hands shaking madly over all the buttons and switches. Why were there so many goddamn buttons and switches?! “I thought they had your ass on lockdown! Damn it, Jasper!” he shouted, reaching toward the button labeled ‘Open Interior,’ and snatching his hand away, fearing he might be misunderstanding which door was the interior, or maybe the labels were wrong, or— or—

“I told them I was coming to see you,” Jasper said, his miserable little smile widening until his eyes crinkled at their corners. It was then that Murphy noticed his goggles were missing. Because he’d left them for Monty— to remember him by.

Murphy abandoned the panel and slammed himself against the airlock door, rearing back and throwing himself into the glass by the shoulder again and again. It didn’t shatter into a thousand opaque stars. No, it didn’t even rattle. 

Jasper had turned his back on the Ring, and was facing the black void of space. 

“Don’t make me watch this,” Murphy begged, letting the tears fall. “Please don’t do it.”

Jasper turned, at that, and approached slowly. When he was as near as he could be, he pressed a palm to the glass. “Murphy,” he said softly. “Thanks for being a friend.”

He had such kind eyes. God, why was he doing this? Everything was fine! They were _fine!_

Jasper smiled, sad and kind, and reached for the release lever.

“I’m _sorry,_ Jasper!” Murphy screamed, pressing his face against the glass, smattering it with tears. “I’m sorry for everything I did!”

But Jasper had already pulled down, and the airlock was yawning open, and for a moment Murphy was eleven years old and his father was standing on the other side of that glass and Murphy knew there was a button right next to him that he just couldn’t reach but this time Murphy could, and he dove, and he _pressed_ it.

The interior door split apart, and just as Jasper’s feet left the ground Murphy reached out and grabbed him by the wrist, hanging onto the inside of the Ring by nothing more than his fingers hooked desperately on the corner of that ridiculous control panel.

Neither of them could speak, or scream, or think to do anything but fight one another, right smack in the middle of life and death.

And a funny thing about death and Murphy— it never much took.

He made a wish and let go of the control panel, and in the millisecond between that horrible, stupid decision and the pull of space lifting him up, _oh,_ wanting him more than anyone had ever wanted him, he snagged the lever in a wide, scarred palm made for ruining, and yanked it down as hard as he could.

The exterior door slammed closed, and Jasper and Murphy fell flat on their faces.

They caught their breath, and took a moment to decide whether they had lived or died. When the verdict was in, Jasper wept.

“No,” he cried, not lifting his face from the floor as Murphy grabbed him by the shirt and crawled out of the airlock, dragging him along. “Why’d you have to do that?” he begged, all the calm, elegant sureness of him gone, now that Murphy had gone and fucked it all up.

Murphy stretched up and pressed the button that sent the interior door hissing closed, and he meant to collapse but Jasper was already on him, pulling back a fist to further mangle what felt like a broken nose.

“You _asshole,”_ he cursed, crying out fury as Murphy caught his wrist and flipped them over, trapping Jasper beneath him and pinning his arms to the floor. “I’m going! I’ll just get right back in!”

Murphy shook his head, flinching as blood dripped from his nose and soaked into Jasper’s shirt, the both of them weeping like a pair of kids.

“You can’t leave me with these people,” Murphy laughed and sniffed. “Okay, Goggles?”

The veins were pulsing in Jasper’s forehead as he sobbed and struggled fruitlessly against Murphy, and he was as red with anger and pain as Murphy had ever seen anyone. He looked horribly ugly. Murphy must have looked worse.

“I didn’t wanna do it with you there,” Jasper cried. “Really, I didn’t.”

“I know,” said Murphy, tightening his grip around wrists that would no doubt bruise like Jasper had tried to lop his hands off with the containment door. “I know that.”

“You never gave a crap before. Why’d you have to go and give one now?”

Murphy wiped his tears on his shoulder and pressed his forehead against Jasper’s, as his chest caved with another broken laugh. “Turns out I like you, Jas.”

“Oh, that’s awful,” Jasper wept. “You’re so clingy.”

“So I’ve been told,” Murphy replied, still laughing and still crying.

He held Jasper for the hour it took for the group to find them at last, tangled up in the dark on the freezing floor.

***

Murphy’s heroics had earned him the great privilege of being Jasper’s new roommate.

He rolled his eyes as Jasper pouted, playing the angriest game of Solitaire on his mattress that anyone had ever played, thwacking all the cards down.

Murphy grunted as he wedged the mattress from his and Emori’s old room into the doorless doorway, dragging it into the corner opposite Jasper and letting it flop against the ground with a billow of dust. It irritated his nose, but he nearly cried out when he reached up to rub at it, fractured to bits as it was. Thanks a lot, Jasper.

It had taken a few days for him to come around to the idea of moving in like Bellamy had suggested, but the night previous he’d had a dream of Jasper’s skin blue and his eyes bulging, falling slowly through space. And then his mind was made up.

“Brought some of your stuff from your old room over,” said Monty, cradling a stack of a couple of crates that Murphy recognized. Jasper abandoned his game with a huff and stood, shoving past Monty to go anywhere they weren’t.

“Common area!” Monty demanded, and Jasper made a hard left to oblige. Murphy found himself wearing the slightest grin.

“At least he’s up.”

“I guess,” muttered Monty, crouching to place the crates beside Murphy’s bed. He then took it upon himself to move a pillow and blanket he’d gathered onto the mattress, and Murphy took one of the crates down, rifling through his meager stack of clothes, his music player, his tin cup, and…

“Have you seen my books?” he asked, and glanced up only to find Monty stilled over one of the crates, smiling.

He slowly held up a pale green, paper frog. “You kept all these?”

Murphy blushed, snatching the crate away. He might have tried to talk his way out of it, but the box full of carefully-packed origami frogs was damning. “Nosy, much?” he snapped, shoving the crate in the corner and tossing a blanket over it to bury its contents.

“It’s nice,” Monty laughed, still holding the frog with the big, ridiculous eyes doodled on. “It’s cute.”

“Shut up,” griped Murphy, unfolding another quilt and whipping it out violently over the bed.

Monty gingerly placed the frog on top of a stack of Murphy’s books that he’d been shielding from view, and to Murphy’s faint horror, began to approach him with that same glowing sincerity that Jasper always did.

“I wanted to say thank you, Murphy,” he said, his smile fading somewhat. “I don’t know why, but you saved my best friend’s life the other day, and almost died doing it.”

Murphy swallowed. “He’s growing on me,” he admitted. “Like a fungus.”

Monty laughed and sounded a bit like he might have begun crying, but he was very discreet about it, looking off to the side to avoid any serious eye contact. Murphy could appreciate that. “Jasper has that effect on people.”

Monty held out his hand for the shaking and Murphy took it, wary of any tricks, and then froze as Monty proved his caution right and yanked him in for a hug. “You’re not the guy I thought you were,” he said quietly, safe to say so in the closeness, and Murphy shakily reached up to pat him on the back.

“Stop patting me like you’re my dad and hug me back, you jerk,” Monty insisted, still holding onto him, and Murphy suddenly understood why Jasper did everything the brave little engineer said.

Murphy squeezed him until he thought Monty might pop, and Monty wheezed out a surprised, joyful laugh that sounded an awful lot like everything was gonna be okay.

***

Raven’s envied booze stash multiplied when they finally broke into ex-Chancellor Nutjob’s office, centuries-old rum and vodka and whiskey and scotch buried in one of his cabinets. In that moment, Murphy was finally able to forgive Jaha, sending out a silent thank you to wherever dad-murdering cult leaders went when they died.

They stacked the bottles up on a table in the common area and pushed a wide open space clear, and Jasper and Murphy fought over whose music player would be hooked up to the intercom system but Murphy wasn’t the one who recently tried to fling himself out of an airlock, so he lost that particular battle, and Monty set out a punch bowl of algae and nobody could tell whether it was a joke or not.

Jasper’s music taste didn’t make Murphy’s ears bleed, at least, and though they were all a bit awkward at first, wondering what on Earth they were thinking— throwing a party for the seven of them— Harper was soon dancing like nobody was watching, and it didn’t take the rest of them long to forget their pride too. Nobody _was_ watching, after all. They were alone up here. Wonderfully alone.

Murphy liked to dance but tended to be stiff, so he got drunk but not plastered, since Jasper was under careful watch and close to being cut off and Murphy didn’t want to rub it in his face.

Jasper was trying. He knew how much Murphy wanted a door again.

“You can certainly hold your drink,” Jasper said, not doing much more than bending his knees as Murphy circled him and swayed to the sound and sang along in the shattered bits of songs that he knew. “You can hold half the damn stash.”

“Don’t be greedy. We can’t all be lightweights like you,” Murphy replied, grinning as Monty taped up the last of the thin, colored blankets over the in-ceiling lights and climbed down from his ladder, having cast the room in dim reds and violets and blues.

“M’not even drunk,” said Jasper, twirling Murphy under his finger. “They won’t _let me_ get drunk.”

“They don’t know you like I do,” Murphy said, and he was kidding, they were only talking about booze after all, but he meant it a little, too. Monty and Jasper were best friends, but there were some things Monty could never understand.

He and Jasper, they were the expendables ones.

“Can I ask you a bad question?” Jasper wondered, draping his arms over Murphy’s shoulders as Murphy held his skinny waist.

“As long as it’s real bad.”

“Did you...? After…” he trailed off, squinting his eyes at Murphy like he’d changed his mind. “Did you ever kill a lot of people, Murphy?”

Murphy smiled. Everyone else was too afraid to talk like that, anymore. They were too busy pretending to be normal. “Millions.”

Jasper shook his head. “No. No, you’re not like everyone else.”

“I’d kill everyone on this ship if it meant I could live," Murphy scoffed.

“No,” Jasper said, grinning. “You love us.”

“Well, I’d kill anyone else,” amended Murphy, turning pink in the face.

“Not if you didn’t have to. They tried to make you part of their cycle, Murphy. That pattern of war and violence and destruction. But _you,”_ he said, poking Murphy in the chest. _“You_ got out.”

“You got it twisted, Jas. I’m not a good person. I just never get a gun.”

“Yes you are,” Jasper persisted, and smiled as Murphy shook his head in protest, picking up Murphy’s arms and waving them around as he chanted, “Murphy’s a good person! Murphy’s a good person! Murphy’s a good person!”

“What the—!“ Murphy shouted, fighting against his grip, unable to look as stern as he wanted as snorts of laughter spilled from him against his will. “Stop!”

Jasper released him eventually, taking a big swallow of his drink before replacing his arms on Murphy’s shoulders, and Murphy rolled his eyes, taking a bigger gulp of his own just to make a point.

“Everyone else is so desperate to believe we’re good. Talking themselves in circles to stay the heroes while we wipe out worlds,” Jasper philosophized, rather eloquently for a drunk man, and Murphy had half a mind to tell him that thinking about shit like that was the reason he was crazy. With the hand they’d been dealt, there was no philosophizing. There was just living.

Murphy wondered if they’d have been able to get along on the ground, where such thoughts were no longer philosophy. He wondered if they’d be friends when they returned, with the weight of moral quandaries on Jasper’s shoulders that Murphy couldn’t have taken onto his, because his hands would pass right through them. 

But it seemed like Jasper approved of whatever Murphy was doing— though he hadn’t done a single thing on purpose— and it disturbed Murphy how pleased he was that Jasper did approve.

“I think Bellamy was wrong about you, Murphy. You don’t like being a hero. You’ve only ever saved us.”

Jasper smiled once more, and that was the end of it. Murphy was not a hero, but he _was_ a good person.

Murphy thought to argue, but there was no point in philosophizing. It’d only make him crazy.

“Bellamy talks about me?” he blurted instead, because it had, unfortunately, stood out to him.

Jasper grinned, but it was devilish, more like Murphy’s smile than his own.

“What?” Murphy snapped, going red again.

“You _like_ him.”

“It was a simple question!”

“You sure do ask a lot of _simple questions_ about our brave leader.”

They were friends, yes, but Murphy still wanted to throttle him every single day.

“Oh, fine. Honestly, he talks about you all the time, Murphy,” Jasper teased, “ _Loads.”_ He carried on trying to talk even as Murphy wrestled him into a headlock, struggling to speak evenly as he fought Murphy’s arm one-handed, the both of them trying to protect their sloshing drinks. “It’s embarrassing, really. Bellamy just won’t shut up about—“  


“Bellamy just won’t shut up about what?” a gruff voice asked, as Bellamy stopped next to them on his way to get another drink.

“Nothing!” they shouted at once, straightening up. Murphy tried to look nonchalant, even as his ears burned and Jasper’s spilled rum soaked uncomfortably into his shirt sleeve.

Bellamy shrugged, making to leave again, and Jasper’s expression suddenly took on the glowing, open look of someone with a brilliant idea. Before Murphy could stop him, he’d reached out and grabbed Bellamy by the arm.

“Actually, cut in for me?” Jasper asked, nodding at a paling Murphy. “I need a break but Murphy just _loves_ this song.”

“Oh,” said Bellamy, bemused and a little bit endearingly awkward. “Alright.”

Murphy’s stomach sank as Bellamy searched for somewhere to put his cup down, and as Jasper walked backwards toward the booze, he lifted his fingers and drew a heart in the air.

_“I’m going to kill you,”_ mouthed Murphy, at least a little bit serious, and Jasper just laughed.

That was really the biggest problem with friends who threw themselves out of airlocks; death threats meant nothing at all.

***

A couple more years passed.

Murphy was learning the art of growing algae under Monty and Harper’s extraordinarily pleased expertise. Emori had her new friends and Murphy had his, and they smiled at each other now. Maybe they’d be friends again, too, someday soon.

Raven encountered a problem with the rocket’s fuel, and Jasper, an expert in making something out of nothing, solved it. He carried on solving problems, making things, lightening Raven’s load, and he got better every day.

They got their curtain back, and then their door.  Bellamy was sleeping better at night.

Murphy gazed down at the tiny, green spot on the surface of the scarred Earth, thinking about how much smaller everything seemed from space. The world was too big for a bird’s eye view.

One year. For better or worse, one more year.

“Are you scared?” Jasper asked, sitting on the other edge of the starboard bay windowsill, a blanket wrapped tightly around his narrow shoulders, heaped so high with all his moral quandaries.

“No,” answered Murphy, warm in his own quilt, resting his temple against the glass.

“It’s so beautiful,” Jasper whispered, two blackened Earths reflected in his eyes. “And it’s so damn ugly, too.”

“But it’s something.”  


“Yeah,” Jasper agreed. “It’s something.”

Murphy had always believed life was about surviving, because it’s all anyone really had. Because even if you had nothing left, you had your skin and your bones. You had a chance.

Jasper, though. He was so sure living meant laughter and music and family and beautiful things and love, love, love, and anything else just wasn’t worth the trouble.

Murphy had come to appreciate the intrinsic value of laughing so hard it hurt, of dancing with a friend, of hugging somebody and _meaning_ it. He had come to understand how one might give up their life for stupid things like that; things like thirty-five paper frogs.

Maybe they could both be right.

He peeked at Jasper out of the corner of his eye, watching waves of worry pass through his eyes over and over, as he thought of the many ways the things that mattered most might be taken from him. Jasper was pretty good at making something out of nothing, but Murphy was, too.

“We can play a proper game of soccer,” he promised, “And I can finally kick your ass.”

Jasper was never as happy as Murphy would have liked him to be, but he could always be made to laugh. “We’re never getting that ball back.”

“And whose fault is that?” he asked, purposefully pressing Jasper’s buttons.

_“Yours!”_ he shouted, sitting up abruptly to kick at Murphy’s socked feet, suddenly insisting that Murphy was being a selfish bastard as usual and taking up all the room.

Murphy only smiled, turning his gaze back out onto the world. It wasn’t perfect, but it was something.

**Author's Note:**

> jasper i miss u
> 
> god PLEASE leave a kudos and let me know what you thought. if i thought writing murphamy was thankless i can't imagine what the audience turnout for the jurphy friendship tag is like
> 
> i'm @slugcities on twitter i hope you will come stalk me there. i will make you a frog


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